Flatley fire sale fetches pretty penny
Dancer sells €85k Hannibal Lecter mask
THE Lord of the Dance has become the Lord of the Decluttering.
When Michael Flatley, 62, decided he couldn’t part with his beloved Cork mansion, Castlehyde, he chose to clear it out instead.
While many Irish people may have decluttered their homes during l ockdown, Flatley has taken it one step further.
He has held a massive two-day auction of hundreds of thousands of euros worth of art, furniture and memorabilia – and he made a killing on a Hannibal Lecter mask worn in The Silence Of The Lambs by Anthony Hopkins.
The mask had been estimated to sell f or between € 80,000 and €120,000, and ultimately fetched €85,000 – which proved to be the highest price of the day.
The auction, which began yesterday and continues today, also included replica suits of armour, shotguns, a snooker table, taxidermy gazelle heads and a cover for a Ferrari.
Auctioneer Philip Sheppard said: ‘There is phenomenal interest, coming literally from all over the world. Michael Flatley is a global brand, and that has certainly been reflected in the interest generated in the sale.
‘We are up and running since 10am, and already everything is selling, mostly at the high end of the estimates, some of them well over, and there is the odd bargain along the way.’
He added: ‘I have just watched a bamboo umbrella being sold for €25, so there is lots there for everybody. That was guided at €50 to €80, but that’s the nature of auctions. There was a chess set guided at €150 to €250, it made €500, it’s gone to somebody in Switzerland.’
He said of the Hannibal Lecter mask: ‘It is an extraordinary piece. It is the actual mask that was used on set by Anthony Hopkins, and it is framed in a box frame. It’s got a poster. It’s signed by Anthony Hopkins and his co-star, and it’s recessed into this space and it has an LED strip that lights it up red, and makes it much more gruesome than it actually is.’
Flatley purchased Castlehyde in 2001 for €3million, and embarked on a renovation programme aimed at restoring the 1760 house to its former glory.
Mr Sheppard told RTÉ’s Claire Byrne that Flatley had come close to selling the property but ultimately decided that his ties to the home were too great. The house is now being prepared for a new chapter in Flatley’s life, he added.
Mr Sheppard explained: ‘It’s 20 years since he did it up. He spent a reputed € 37million on the property at the time.
‘The house has been on the market for a number of years. In the end it was an international hotel consortium that agreed to buy it, but at the last minute, Michael Flatley decided against selling it.
‘He’s emotionally invested in the property, they got married down in Fermoy, they had their wedding reception there, him and Niamh [O’Brien, his wife]. Their son, Michael St James, was born in
Cork, and he’s told me he’s happiest when he’s there, so when push came to shove he decided no, he would keep it. What we are doing is actually selling off the residue, the pieces that are not required for this new scheme.’
Mr Sheppard described the celebrity memorabilia as ‘ high end, really good quality pieces’, adding: ‘Not something that we would come across here, but then again not everybody is a global superstar, and not everyone has an international lifestyle.’
Visit www.sheppards.ie to watch the auction live.